Gah. No kidding. I remember when TWoP had the American Idol "Loud is the new Good" tshirt. What's this season? Weak is the new good? The majority of them can't even sing loud, much less anything else.

My cousin - the next Food Network star? Hungry Like The Jones.

(He may have to work on his knife skills.)

Just watched AI and I'm ready for the top 10 now - can we skip to that? My top 5 boys are easy picks: Big Mike, Cowboy Casey, Andrew Garcia, Baby 16 Year Old, and Gravel Voice With Hat And Droopy Pants. I don't need to hear the others any more. And even of my top 5, I'm only interested in 3 of 'em.

I'm with flea pretty much. Though I would put Mr. Onesy in there for entertainment value. That fool is pure DIVA. Make no mistake.

Sepinwall said this about last night in part -

"And the judges aren't invested in any of them, giving them conflicting advice from week-to-week"

I agree with this.

Kat, I don't watch AI, but your recap was FULL OF WIN!

Hee!

I thought the contestant who did "A Change is Going to Come" was way over praised. I thought it was good, but something was lacking in her interpretation.

Love that Ryan corrected Judge #4. Sigh. At least she could pay attention to the show.

Mamasox/As Long As I See The Light - This girl can definitely sing. She's the real deal. I don't know that I over the moon loved it, but I liked it a whole lot, which is more than enough in this, the season of suck.

Why is the last Latina standing wearing a meringue?

Haeley/The Climb - So Judge #4 made me so mad (like that's new). I agree that this girl could've done with mor seasoning before being thrust into the gaping maw of 30 million viewers a week because half the time she's delicious and half the time she couldn't find the pitch with a shovel and a flashing neon sign stating "Dig here to find pitch." But since the judges knew this, why did they put her on the show this year? Bleagh. Anyway, she was horrible. And she looked like a black Mayim Bialik circa Blossom which . . . is a look, I guess.

I think the girls this year are far more talented than the boys, as a group. The only guys who interest me are Michael and Andrew, but I really like Crystal, Lilly, Siobhan, and ... the little young one, Kelly? The seventeen-year-old.

Lacey/Kiss Me - Bored Now. She did a pale imitation of a non-song song that's all quirk and bells and whistles anyway. Never listen to Judge #4, kids. That's a recipe for disaster.

Katie/Three Little Birds - How is this a younger song than last week? Thus is a VH1, lite FM staple. As Ellen noted, it's Muzak to drill teeth by. She sang it fine, I guess. The verse was a little too low. But who cares, no? I won't remember what she sang by the end of the night. Down with teenagers on this show, y'all. For real.

Afghan/Lean on Me - Oh, as usual, dear. Thesekids need some themes, stat. They cannot be trusted with free choice days. And thean she started out way too low and overcompensated once she got up into her head voice so that it got a little screechy in spots. It wasn't as bad as the judges said, but it wasn't good. I did feel badly for her, and since everyone knows I'm heartless, that probably goes double for the rest of America, so I'm guessing she's good.

Michelle/With Arms Wide Open - There's never a good reason to sing a Creed song. Trust that this is so. And this girl has such a thin, reedy voice, there's no way she could bring the kind of power necessary to plow through this cheese. The front was passable for a drunken bachelorette party. The back half of the song was tragic. And the final glory note was absolute booty. Close always counts for pretty girls on this show, though, so thanks shallowness.